Brilliant Moddsey - only ten years before I finally caught it up.
The funny shape extending out on the waterfront there, where Praya East angles northwards towards Bowrington, is the small reclamation that started life in probably the late 1870s or early 1880s to serve as the government's coalyard. It is first labelled as such on marine charts in the 1887 (USHO 852) and 1888 (BA 1459). On the Stanford's 1889 Plan of the City of Victoria it is still shown as planned rather than actual. It is not on the 1873 Chronicle & Directory map of the north HK Island waterfront.
There is an entry in the Public Works Blue Book report in 1875 that reads:
"Reclaiming a portion of thc Foreshore at Wanchai. Constructing cost £703 0s 8d Report No.27 Date 1875"
I think that must be it. It seems to have been done and dusted in a year, since there is no mention in 1874 and none in 1876. Of course, this was not the period of the Surveyor General's Public Works chaps covering themselves with administrative glory so there may be more to it.
By 1897 the eastern half had become a government store, and on a map of 1903 the whole is labelled 'lumber yard'.
In Moddsey's postcard, it seems possible that the black sheds towards the western end may be the remaining coalsheds, with government stores laid out around something like a courtyard, which is more or less how they are mapped.
A 1905 map labels the whole shebang 'Government Store' and a 1909 map seems to show a larger area a bit as in Moddsey's image - as if further reclamation may have been going on. That's confirmed on BA 1459 of 1912, when a much larger area is shown both east west and, in terms of shoal ground dry at chart datum, northwards.
By 1914 there is a much larger area reclaimed altogether, as shown on the Plan of the City of Victoria corrected to 1914, from the The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Sian, Netherlands India, Borneo, the Philippines, &c.
The 1924 aerial photograph shows an even larger area reclaimed, probably part of the slow going Praya East reclamation project that had been announced in 1903, then suspended (because the new tram didn't bring the boom times imagined), and that finally got slowly under way in 1921, though not completed until 1931.
Anyway, thank you for that image that shows what had begun life as a coalyard whilst it was still almost recognizably as it had initially been.
Possibly the shallow area (likely at low tide) seen in this photo could have a connection with the coal yard, at least of the western part of it. I think that the whole foreshore was shallow and reclamation comparably easy.
Hong Kong: docks and harbour from the cliffs, by Klaus
Thanks Herostratus - yes. Interestingly, if Mr Reed of the Rifleman's 1866 survey of the whole north coast of the island is to be credited (and of course, as the begetter of the Rifleman's Bolt, it has to be!), what was reclaimed was the area between the rocks marking the eastern end of the shoal ground, pretty much on the 'crook' of the turn to the seawall at the end of Wanchai Road and just short of the long pier we can see in this photo. (If I'd ever mastered the technique of posting images here, I'd post the relevant bit of the 14 images I have that cover the whole of the survey. It was never published and only exists as a simply whopping fair draft of the survey to a scale of 160' to an inch.)
My sense is that there must have been very rapid siltation between 1866 and 1875 when the reclamation was finished. On Mr Reed's survey, there would have been 3' depth at chart datum on the seaward edge over the western third of the reclamation and also at the eastern end. There would have been 6' at chart datum at the end of a stub pier towards the western end. The 1877 BA survey of Man of War Anchorage has the whole reclamation 30m or so inside the chart datum drying line, and the end of its stub pier a few metres inside the drying line.
From the huddle of lighters on the seaward side of the reclamation in the 1910 postcard it would seem that despite the impeding Praya East Reclamation scheme, some dredging may have been done.
A combination of Mr Reed's survey, that of the Admiralty's 1877 update, and the 1875 reclamation report in the Public Works Blue Book, suggests Klaus' lovely photo must be early 1870s. Interesting the contrast in what's on the reclamation between the 1910 postcard and the c.1900s detail looking at the area from the other direction.
Comments
the government coalyard, hurrah
Brilliant Moddsey - only ten years before I finally caught it up.
The funny shape extending out on the waterfront there, where Praya East angles northwards towards Bowrington, is the small reclamation that started life in probably the late 1870s or early 1880s to serve as the government's coalyard. It is first labelled as such on marine charts in the 1887 (USHO 852) and 1888 (BA 1459). On the Stanford's 1889 Plan of the City of Victoria it is still shown as planned rather than actual. It is not on the 1873 Chronicle & Directory map of the north HK Island waterfront.
There is an entry in the Public Works Blue Book report in 1875 that reads:
"Reclaiming a portion of thc Foreshore at Wanchai. Constructing cost £703 0s 8d Report No.27 Date 1875"
I think that must be it. It seems to have been done and dusted in a year, since there is no mention in 1874 and none in 1876. Of course, this was not the period of the Surveyor General's Public Works chaps covering themselves with administrative glory so there may be more to it.
By 1897 the eastern half had become a government store, and on a map of 1903 the whole is labelled 'lumber yard'.
In Moddsey's postcard, it seems possible that the black sheds towards the western end may be the remaining coalsheds, with government stores laid out around something like a courtyard, which is more or less how they are mapped.
A 1905 map labels the whole shebang 'Government Store' and a 1909 map seems to show a larger area a bit as in Moddsey's image - as if further reclamation may have been going on. That's confirmed on BA 1459 of 1912, when a much larger area is shown both east west and, in terms of shoal ground dry at chart datum, northwards.
By 1914 there is a much larger area reclaimed altogether, as shown on the Plan of the City of Victoria corrected to 1914, from the The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Sian, Netherlands India, Borneo, the Philippines, &c.
The 1924 aerial photograph shows an even larger area reclaimed, probably part of the slow going Praya East reclamation project that had been announced in 1903, then suspended (because the new tram didn't bring the boom times imagined), and that finally got slowly under way in 1921, though not completed until 1931.
Anyway, thank you for that image that shows what had begun life as a coalyard whilst it was still almost recognizably as it had initially been.
StephenD
Reclamation area
Possibly the shallow area (likely at low tide) seen in this photo could have a connection with the coal yard, at least of the western part of it. I think that the whole foreshore was shallow and reclamation comparably easy.
Addendum: see also here
The coalyard
Thanks Herostratus - yes. Interestingly, if Mr Reed of the Rifleman's 1866 survey of the whole north coast of the island is to be credited (and of course, as the begetter of the Rifleman's Bolt, it has to be!), what was reclaimed was the area between the rocks marking the eastern end of the shoal ground, pretty much on the 'crook' of the turn to the seawall at the end of Wanchai Road and just short of the long pier we can see in this photo. (If I'd ever mastered the technique of posting images here, I'd post the relevant bit of the 14 images I have that cover the whole of the survey. It was never published and only exists as a simply whopping fair draft of the survey to a scale of 160' to an inch.)
My sense is that there must have been very rapid siltation between 1866 and 1875 when the reclamation was finished. On Mr Reed's survey, there would have been 3' depth at chart datum on the seaward edge over the western third of the reclamation and also at the eastern end. There would have been 6' at chart datum at the end of a stub pier towards the western end. The 1877 BA survey of Man of War Anchorage has the whole reclamation 30m or so inside the chart datum drying line, and the end of its stub pier a few metres inside the drying line.
From the huddle of lighters on the seaward side of the reclamation in the 1910 postcard it would seem that despite the impeding Praya East Reclamation scheme, some dredging may have been done.
A combination of Mr Reed's survey, that of the Admiralty's 1877 update, and the 1875 reclamation report in the Public Works Blue Book, suggests Klaus' lovely photo must be early 1870s. Interesting the contrast in what's on the reclamation between the 1910 postcard and the c.1900s detail looking at the area from the other direction.
StephenD